In a Teacher's Day address made mandatory viewing in schools and colleges across Gujarat, Chief Minister Narendra Modi today (September 5)used the occasion to speak out against terrorism and rooted for an anti-terror law in the state.
In an unprecedented event where a Chief Minister delivered an address on Teacher's Day and beamed live state-wide, Modi also called upon students to take a pledge to take Gujarat to new heights during its Golden jubilee year in 2010.
The Live telecast of Modi's address to a gathering of students at Town hall in Ahmedabad was shown on Doordarshan's Gujarati channel for about 90 minutes.
Modi also took questions from the students one of whom asked him about his fight against terrorism.
"Keep a strict vigil on what is happening around us. Terrorists carry out their acts by being within the society. If we are vigilant, it would be difficult for them to carry their nefarious acts", he said.
Modi also wanted the Centre to quickly clear Gujcoca, an anti-terror law that has been passed by the Gujarat Assembly and waiting for the approval of the President. If there is a stringent law against terrorism, youngs boys from good families will not jump into terror activities, he said.
With Modi apparently wanting students to tune in to his Teacher's Day speech, a circular was issued by the state education department directing all the schools to make arrangements to show Modi's live speech.
Modi spoke in detail about various schemes that the state government has introduced for the welfare of children and also to improve education system in the country.
He told students about his "Kanya Kelavani Abhiyan", which aims at enrolment of all the girl students to the state for formal education.
Modi also said that his government aims to bring down the dropout rate to zero by the year 2010.
He stressed on the health of students and advised them to remain healthy and take part in government students' medical checkup scheme.
"Keep a strict vigil on what is happening around us because terrorists are hiding within the society and if we are vigilant we can catch them before its too late, Modi said in reply to a question of a student regarding tackling terrorism.
Talking about the advantage of learning English language, Modi said "It is a fact that teaching in mother tongue is most advantageous but the students are capable of learning more languages, so we are working on a project to teach English as a subordinate language."
He further said, "in the coming centuries, Asia will dominate the world and thus it is important for students to learn other Asian languages, like Chinese and Japanese, apart from English."
"With the invention of computers and other modern technologies of education burden of school bags on children is likely to be phased out soon," he added.
"I had made a suggestion that students should be allowed to sit in examinations with their text books but I am not an expert in the field of education," Modi added.
